RBOTD #191: Hollow Sign
From one former asshole to some others
https://www.metal-archives.com/band/view/id/22658
Country: Poland
Location: Wrocław, Lower Silesia
Genre: heavy/power metal
Formed in: 2002
Status: Active
By the Numbers
Hollow Sign is the:
72nd band formed in the 2000s
3rd band from Poland
102nd band that is active at the time of querying
Its genre tags have been seen:
Heavy: 38 times
Power: 10 times
Member Connections
Antares, a heavy metal band from Wrocław, Lower Silesia
Lost Soul, a tech death band from Wrocław, Lower Silesia
Magnus, a death/thrash band from Wrocław, Lower Silesia
Carura, a prog death band from Częstochowa/Rybnik, Silesia
Moyra, a melodeath band from Wrocław, Lower Silesia
Know 'Em?
Nope. I am now 10/191.
Sketch Check
Pass.
RateYourMusic Scores
Hollow Sign has not been rated on RYM.
Adjusted scores are calculated similarly to the Trad Belt scoring system. Please read that column for more information.
Trifecta Tracker
Hollow Sign has not achieved the trifecta.
A band can achieve the trifecta by titling a song after itself on a self-titled release. Iron Maiden's "Iron Maiden" on 1980's Iron Maiden is an example of the trifecta.
I know my audience. After this post, if you remember Poland's Hollow Sign for anything, it will be that it was previously named Asshole.1 Asshole released three demos, somehow stretching that name out over nine years from 1993 to 2002. In 1996, it released its second demo, Asshole. Does it have a song titled "Asshole"? You bet it does. If these Assholes can achieve the trifecta, what's your excuse?
Anyway, Hollow Sign. Doesn't quite have the same, ahem, ring to it, but I get why a band would want to broaden its commercial horizons, especially if it's making this kind of music. Its 2006 full-length, Słuchać głośno!, "listen out loud!" if Google Translate is to be trusted, reminds me of all of the lightly heavy/power/prog bands that were really more post-grunge than anything else. I mean, not much on Słuchać głośno! feels particularly heavy/power to me. That said, I'm guessing that Hollow Sign was part of the heavy/power scene. This was just a vibe in the middle '00s, a shift towards Clear Channel radio rawk that chased Fates Warning's maturing tastes and the like. Perhaps this trend was even ushered in by Queensrÿche's pretty not great Hear in the Now Frontier.2 Whatever the case, I remember getting 40,000 of these promos mailed to me in flimsy cardboard sleeves every month. Most of them were from Europe. Most of them sounded like Hollow Sign. And you know what? In 2022? I don't hate it.
"Wolf," you're screaming, "didn't you light up Dorylus last week for this very thing?" Yeah. Fair. However, I think there are three things at play that work in Hollow Sign's favor:Â
Hollow Sign was part of that 2000s wave. Heck, if you roll in Asshole, it was there from the early '90s on.3 It wasn't a judder-come-lately, rehashing a style 20 years after the fact. The Fates Warning of FWX was a peer.
Słuchać głośno! is broader and thus removed from metal I care about. Therefore, I'm not that irritated by it. I am the toughest on things I like. When it's this stuff, the stakes are way lower. I have a soft spot for something like Mad at Gravity, a band that could balance radio hooks with a subtle progressiveness, for that very reason.
I don't speak Polish.
Whatever the case, Słuchać głośno! sounds fine. Sure, it's inconsequential, never rising above wallpaper rawk, but the tracks rarely misstep or get super cringe. For mid-'00s heavy/hard stuff with a radio sheen, it's well-hewn. You could do a lot worse.
For instance, Jacek Gutowski's voice thankfully eschews the post-grunge yarl that was endemic at the time, preferring a strained yell when reaching for something more aggressive. Likewise, the harder stuff, such as the opener "Bez Imienia," has a riff-based propulsiveness that serves it well. Like, the fact that there are even riffs places it above a lot of churning, chundering slop. Farting around at this exact time was the garbage klaatu barada nikcoughcoughcoughed into existence by the fake Black Album stomp of early Nickelback, a siren song that seemed to wreck a lot of heavy/power bros hunting for a meal ticket. Granted, ultimately Hollow Sign is…uh…whatever. But, in this context, that's a minor achievement, like finding a flake of gold in a sewer.
The star of the show is drummer Mintay, who gives Słuchać głośno! way more socks than he has to. The drums have a professional punch to them but are pleasingly loose, swinging well when called upon to spice things up. Really, any dash of spice goes a long way. Tracks like "Czas Próby" are OK, the music teacher version of Full Devil Jacket. However, something like "Świeca" is way more enjoyable, adding Nadia Szagdaj-Gutowska's cello to an Alice in Chains-derived rock ballad. Sure, even that highlight is best-case bar band material, total rawk ambient in the original Brian Eno sense, but there's a craftsmanship present that helps keep Hollow Sign's head above water. In my mind, that know-how and skill remove it from butt metal territory. Well, as removed from butt metal territory as a former Asshole can be, I guess.
Rando Observations
Ready to have your butt blown off? I am the asshole for burying this: Asshole/Hollow Sign alum Jacek Grecki briefly played guitars in Magnus in 1996. Its first two albums, 1989's Scarlet Slaughterer and 1992's I Was Watching My Death, rip.4Â However, if Grecki's name looks familiar to you, it's probably because he's the lone remaining founding member of, drum roll please, Lost Soul. Yep! Your intro to Lost Soul should be 2005's Chaostream, which burninates riffs like countrymen Vader but sprouts flowers out of the ashes like later Dismember. Chase that with 2015's Atlantis: The New Beginning That one switches things up with an overclocked Morbid Angel/near-Nile heaviness.
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Asshole shouldn't be confused with France's Asshole, which held onto that name from 1986 to 1995 and then again from 2008 to 2011. The thrashers squeezed out one full-length, 1991's C.Y.T.T.O.Y.L.P., which stands for "Choose Yourself the Title of Your LP."
I still think "Sign of the Times" kind of goes. It's like Civilian-era Gentle Giant updated for Screaming Trees fans.
Magnus also titled its 1987 demo Power Metal, beating Pantera to that one by a few months. However, both were late to the party. Anthares, Fallen Angel, and Cruella all had releases out with that title a few years prior. Haven't heard the Anthares one. The Fallen Angel and Cruella demos both smoke. Fallen Angel's 1985 demo, in particular, is very interesting. Recorded at the same studio as Metallica's Kill 'Em All, it has an unexpected heft to it for mid-'80s power/speed stuff. Worth your time.